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Thursday, January 15, 2015

Look at me, illustrating my book with a picture of a clothed woman on a stripper pole. Amazon does not like nudity on erotica book covers. Sad, really. Click on the pic to be sent to my International Bookstore with links to Amazon sites for my book all over the world.

In Book 3 of The Prop Master series, "The Prop Master: Cindy Laid Bare" things heat up on the Desert Industries Dreams set when Jack discovers sabotage of stunt equipment that could easily injure or kill the stunt people. Just how far will the feminist prudes go to stop the movie? Meanwhile, Cindy enters subspace as she waits for Jack to finish what he started when he tied her wrists behind her back, knowing he WILL finish what he started …

Well the preceding paragraph is the blurb for the book I published on Amazon. Amazon doesn't like blurbs to actually describe what's in an erotic story to attract readers. So I could not say that there's a prolonged sex scene with Jack dominating the hell out of Cindy and tying her up in all sorts of ways and gagging her, too. That would be ALL WRONG. But I can say it here, so I have. There's also a lot about Cindy's early life. The focus has been on Jack to date, but she's going to be front and center soon enough.

So when you see the cover, remember, it's not really an accurate representation of the book's contents. This picture is a lot closer to what's inside the book. Image courtesy of Sex and Submission.com.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Life can change in an instant when you're just one of many human beings floating down the mighty Mississippi River on a few bits of wood, as Constance Harlee discovers when Bart Fink leaves her among the outlaws and cutthroats of the infamous Bluff's Hole outlaw hideout and saloon in the latest book in the Riverbeast series, Riverbeast, The Saloon. Suddenly she is no longer just cargo traveling down the river, but a saloon girl, in a saloon whose customers mostly had prices on their heads. The desires of such men knew no limits, as Constance discovers when she becomes a saloon girl at Bluff's Hole.

Well I'm growing more adept at playing Amazon's censorship games under the tutelage of other erotic publishers. For example, the woman on the cover's hips were not covered in the original image, as the garment stopped about level with her crotch. So I just hiked that sucker up over her hips using a little GIMP magic. I was also extremely careful with the title and subtitle, not even hinting that she was being sold as a slave or misrepresented as black, as apparently that is a no-no as well. I called her a "saloon girl" although she's described in the story as a "slave whore" because, once again, it's a no-no on the cover and in the blurb.

I also did not use the word "nigger" anywhere in the book. The characters in the story, being lowlife scum of the 1820s would of COURSE have called black people "niggers" but this might be an issue for Amazon too, so I used an asterisk just in case. Like I said, censorship breeds absurdity.

However, the book itself contains explicit descriptions of poor Constance being used as a slave whore by various denizens of the Bluff's Hole Saloon, while in various states of bondage, of course. No censorship of the contents, nosirree.

And fortunately, you CAN use keywords like "slave" "whore" "prostitute" etc., in your keywords, so people who have an interest in those topics CAN find the book. It would be nice if the cover and blurb could more accurately represent the books' contents, but bluenoses or the fear of them dictate that it is not to be. Sad, really.

I'm trying to figure out euphemisms for this that pass Amazon's scrutiny that people will understand. For example, "Extreme affection under duress of a ropey sort," might not be recognized as "hardcore fucking while tied hand and foot." Language is funny that way. Image courtesy of Sex and Submission.com.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

When it was first released, my new book Prop Master: Cindy's Student was declared "adult" by Amazon. This meant the book would not show up on general searches, which meant it wouldn't sell nearly as well as it might sell otherwise. This sounds like a minor thing and on the larger scale of things it probably is, but it's been a major thorn in my side. Being "adult-dungeoned" as erotica authors called it pretty much tanked the sales of the book.

That's because when a book is newly released it gets placed higher in the ranks of Amazon's search terms for a short time, boosting its potential sales. Being adult-dungeoned destroys that sales potential So sales of "The Prop Master: Cindy's Student" have tanked hard, whereas they should be leading the charge and picking up sales of my other books.

I looked at the book hard to figure out why it had been so designated. I finally decided it was probably the cover, made a few very small changes to it, and resubmitted it with a request that they reconsider the adult designation. After about a day I got a nice letter back saying they had decided to remove the adult designation from the book. A day later, it was out of the adult dugneon. So now it's generally available in searches.

Now what did I do that was so horrible to get me adult-dungeoned? And what did I have to do to get out of it? Let me show you:

Left: the relevant portion of the original art that got me adult-dungeoned. Right: the corrected art that got me out. Not a word of the book's content was changed.

All I had to do was draw a pair of bikini bottoms on the woman. I guess Amazon's censor didn't think the thick ribbon of fabric running from her collar to the back of her belt did an adequate job of covering up her womanly parts, except of course they DID, no such parts were visible. All I can figure is that the censor thought there was too much vagina-proximate flesh showing on the left side of Cindy on the cover?

Now here's where I'm going to be amazing by being entirely too reasonable for a man who hates censorship as much as I do. I understand Amazon's concern re: covers and blurbs. Their problem is that they don't want to be accused of peddling smut, and they have a whole lot of erotica writers whose covers would look like THIS if Amazon allowed it:

Ok, and I might be one of the writers who might use such covers. Cover art courtesy of the fine folks at Sex and Submission. The type was my idea!

I may be exaggerating for effect a WEE BIT here, but I don't really think I'm exaggerating much if any. Erotica readers and writers are not an inhibited bunch, and as far as I am concerned, ought to be able to enjoy such covers in the privacy of their own Kindles, but of COURSE the bluenoses would be all over that stuff in a flash if Amazon covers like the one above were allowed. So there have to be rules and standards for what shows on covers and what does not.

And that's how you get into the absurdity of drawing bikinis on images of women whose naughty bits are safely covered by a vertical strip of fabric. Censorship breeds absurdity, always.

Adding to the absurdity of the situation is this tasty bit of absurdity: erotica authors, not just me, have learned from repeated painful experiences that the Amazon censors who work on the weekend are a LOT more censorious than the ones who work on the weekdays. I have had two books censored, one blocked and one adult-dungeoned, since I started making a serious push to publish on Amazon, both of them were submitted on a Friday and got picked up by the weekend censors. So I submit books to Amazon on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays now, no later. Stupid, but there it is.

But the key thing, the important thing is, Amazon does not make a lot of effort to censor the actual content of a book. They concern themselves primarily with the covers and blurbs, the things that will show up when people (specifically, bluenoses) do a search. I think this is a reasonable compromise. Censor the incidentals, not the main event. So I guess I will put up with it. Not that I have a choice. Amazon commands a huge portion of the book buying marketplace.

Now, as to the story in the book itself, the main event, as it were, uncensored in all its semi-pristeen glory:

In The Prop Master: Cindy's Student, Cindy asks Jack to help B-grade movie start Julia Strange learn the ropes, the chains and the gags, so she can cope with the submissive feelings that being tied up in her various movie roles arouse in her. Of course he obliges … anything for art! But how will it affect their relationship? Meanwhile, a group of old-line prudes and feminists are trying to throw legal and technical monkey wrenches into DID's new series. Can the Prop Master keep the gremlins at bay and keep two insatiable women very, very happy as they writhe in the intense bondage pleasures wrought by Jack's naughty, knotty skills? Only one way to find out!

This book is a little over 12,000 words long and is part of the morality laws/basic income world.